No, Just Stop Oil is not an “activist” group. They’re in cahoots with the enemy. They’re defamation, and their intent is to give the radical right something to point to.
Just Stop Just Stop Oil.
EDIT: There are waaaaaaay too many assumptions happening in this thread.
I once read a pretty good write up somewhere on Reddit with proof that they were getting reasonably large financial support from the daughter of an oil baron, and it’s unclear if she supports the left or right.
On the other hand, a friend of a friend was arrested at a just stop oil rally in Manchester, UK a few months back, and I know him well enough to absolutely believe he thought he was doing what was best for the world, although I’m unsure if he’d deface anything.
https://whynow.co.uk/read/who-is-funding-just-stop-oil-the-billionaires-backing-the-art-vandals
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/climate/climate-protesters-paid-activists.html
Sorry about the Times article, it’s a citation used on Wikipedia. Top one is not paywalled.
So let‘s talk about the first article. It‘s written by art critic Alexander Adams who likes to talk about things like „why the Left hates good art“
https://soundcloud.com/user-923838732/alexander-adams-why-the-left-hates-good-art
Just the style of writing in this article gives away a lot:
The self-professed aims of these organisations and their millionaire backers are to bypass politics and implement radical measures upon the world’s population without democratic consultation.
the referenced piece here is written by a Breitbart editor by the way.
Anyway, so Just Stop Oil are going to bypass the world‘s democratic order? Yeah? By demanding them to follow through with their climate pledges? Oh man.
Also, it is no news, that the Getty heir is contributing to various funds, so what. I am a landlord and support Extinction Rebellion, does that make their actions inauthentic?
The reality is that the UK is using pretty straight forward laws to prevent this kind of protest, they don‘t need some kind of internationalist cabal to do that for them.
There’s no proof but what else could be these people’s problem? They have to know what they’re doing to the image of people who do care about the environment. It’s not like they’re helping. I don’t get it.
it doesn‘t seem logical to you that some people are freaking out because everybody is talking about climate change while it is clearly happening and it is becoming obvious that too little is being done too late?
If that were true, wouldn’t their shenanigans be more destructive? Soup over a glass protected painting and colored corn starch on a monument are not really rage inducing.
“Protests must be polite and not ruffle any feathers” is what I’m hearing.
Sorry. But as climate change gets worse and corporations continue to annihilate the living beings on this planet while governments uphold their ability to do so, the protests will only become more radical. We’re long past the point of polite protests, and they didn’t work.
Radical in my mind is burning down an oil plant. Going after a piece of history is disgusting. At least ruffle the feathers of the people you’re standing up to.
I’ve read the other replies to my comment, but yours is the only counter that I mostly agree with.
Yes, going after an oil plant would certainly be a much more radical form of protest. The main issue is that targeting something like that carries massive risk and is unfathomably challenging. That isn’t to say they shouldn’t do it though.
My comment was more a response to some of the general negative sentiment that I see in response to other protests that are disruptive. It’s usually reactionary claims of “you’re making people mad, so it’s counterproductive”, while ignoring the fact that nothing else has worked.
“Protests must be polite and not ruffle any feathers” is what I’m hearing.
I don’t think that protests have to be polite, however protests do have to be productive. If your environmental group’s political agitation only results in turning public opinion away from the greater movement…I’m not sure if that’s a productive use of political capital.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question a group’s motivation who are participating in unproductive political agitation. Especially considering that their funding comes from an oil heiress, who could be using her vast fortune to be lobbying to the people whom actually have access to the power that can bring about real change.
the protests will only become more radical.
I’d hardly say paying some teens to “vandalize” a painting that your family owns is really a radical act of protest. Now if they were conducting these types of actions against oil companies, or the political bodies who support them… That would be radical.
Okay but could they please target things that are actually causing the problem and not thousands of years old stone monuments that can’t possibly have any bearing on anything.
Otherwise they’re just being vandals. And then bean vandals is counterproductive to their own stated course.
This is so hilariously wrong. There’s a lot of stuff I won’t admit to since this is a public account and a public identity. Kairos. What I don’t support, however, is vandalism of historical monuments. Especially when the monument in question is so incredibly irrelevant to the crisis at hand.
There’s a lot of stuff I won’t admit to since this is a public account and a public identity.
haha
I’m sorry dog but spray painting an ancient wonder isn’t an environmental protest.
It’s corn starch. The ancient wonder suffers more defacement in the form of erosion because it rains every 4 seconds in the UK. Stonehenge will be perfectly okay.
Normally I’m tepid on this kinda headline getting, but I feel like Stonehenge of all things is not the ideal target for the supposed intent of these kinds of protests.
I have the suspicion for a while that the people behind those new climate movements are paid by oil companies and others to make climate activists look bad, and shift the public opinion about climate action.
All the actions seem to deliberately targeted to anger the mainstream about them.
Making the naive climate activists at the front the tool of conglomerates.
Idk man, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. Like wasn’t there reporting about the US recently in which the military was spreading antivax misinformation in the Philippines and other countries. Russia and China has their own cyber armies too. It’s not too much of a stretch that large conglomerates and corpos may have their own private propaganda wings either.
But it raises the question why some paint on some big old rocks is more outrageous than anything the oil & gas lobby did in the past 50 years.
No it really doesn’t, getting called stupid is far below the standard of even the minimal consequences oil and gas companies have faced in those 50 years. Or the public condemnation of such.
These people are the “bUt DeMs SaMe!” of facing the consequences of their own actions. The only way you could genuinely think nothing is being done and that some forever student college kids are getting harsher treatment than the most hated companies in the world is if you’re in a position of blinding privilege that obscures the real world movement in the situation.
There are thing done, yes, but these are too little too late and only after massive protests and public outcries for any kind of legislation to somewhat mildly stop climate change (with tummy ache).
So on one hand we have multi millionaires and billionaires actively destroying the planet, spend decades spreading lies about it and bribing politicians (but it’s called lobbying so it’s ok)
On the other hand we have people in their teens and 20s who throw soup at glass and paint at rocks and sit on the street.
Guess which one goes into preventive custody and gets officially declared a suspect of extremism by German intelligence and which one every now and then has to accommodate to some laws taking effect 10 years into the future, which will most likely be abolished before then.
I just wish it was the other way around…
Why not? They used starch. It’s not like Stonehenge is actually damaged. And using symbols people care about is the only way to convey that the crisis we’re facing is actually threatening things we care about. Everything else will be, and has been, ignored.
Because it was built by Naturepath druids.
They vandalized a structure that represents the purest distillment europeans may have achieved of their ideal vision thus far in human history.
That’d be like me demanding bike infrastructure by bombing Amsterdam.
I’m not sure I’d describe practitioners of human sacrifice in quite the same way, myself.
The intent is to get people to talk about them and their message.
Well known monuments are great for that kinda stuff.
Yeah, we’re all talking about what unhinged dicks they are and wishing for them to be disbanded. Great job!
Fuck these people.
They didn’t destroy anything, the paint can be removed without ruining the site, and they brought more visibility than sitting around with signs.
I don’t have a problem with this.
I’m not sure visibility is really what we need at this point. Is there anyone left on Earth that doesn’t know about it? I think what we need instead is political mobilization and coalition-building to increase our political clout and ultimately win elections and create legislation.
Yeah I think awareness where they ruin yachts and private planes is better than destroying common cultural heritage. Wtf
Apparently everyone still doesn’t get how serious it is if they get worked up over paint on Stonehenge more than over the climate catastrophy.
people are aware of it in the sense that it’s a thing that vaguely exists on the horizon
if society doesn’t want to be melted by climate change, that demonstrably isn’t going to be enough to stop it
The amount of people justifying calling it global warming is still is kinda shocking to be honest. The ignorance is probably why people are still bringing kt to light.
Theres people in the comments saying it causes warming and that’s why they call it that……
I don’t think that there is any purpose to “bringing visibility” to global warming in 2024. Effectively everyone is already aware of global warming and has been for some time.
The issue isn’t awareness, but disagreement over the weight to put on policies to mitigate it. And I don’t expect that doing stuff like this is going to change people’s positions on that weight.
The fact that you’re using the wrong term just shows that yeah, it kinda does need more visibility I guess.
While it’s not damaged and will just wash off in the rain, they shouldn’t be doing this to irrelevant monuments. It’s getting nobody on your side.
irrelevant monuments
“Irrelevant”? Huh? I think you’re a victim of autocorrect
I know “there is no bad press” but more people will think “fuck those guys” than “maybe environment does need saving” upon reading these news.
Also just because they were responsible about their dick move doesn’t mean everybody will be. Or something happens that causes long term damage by accident.
I care for environment greatly but I’d slap these people as long as I could lift my hands and then some.
Doesn’t matter. It’s a protected site and there’s protected species living on the stones. So they should be prosecuted on two counts at least. It’s illegal. If I’d have shot a protester for being a cunt I’d be prosecuted.
News about climate change: i sleep
News about climate protests: REAL SHIT?
I hate how people are more interested in talking about protests than actual climate change.
Climate change is being talked every single goddamn day. It’s been a constant thing people talk for a long while. Sometimes it’s overshadowed by other topics but the talk has never stopped. This shit isn’t some silenced issue. The issue isn’t how much people are talking but how little people are doing.
It doesn’t help several of these protests have been proven to be started BY polluting companies to discredit climate protests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/climate/climate-protesters-paid-activists.html
They’re pretending to fund these groups because they care about the environment but it’s obvious all they’re doing is paying radicals to create hate for environmental groups.
Or you fell for the propaganda that’s discrediting them.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Far too little is being done against climate change, on every level - socially, politically, economically, individually. One would have to wonder what the fuck is happening if we didn’t have some form of protest. They are necessarily going to become more extreme as time goes by, and they will have every right to do so.
Rebecca Watson has an interesting video on this. The way things are going right now, people in 50 years will look back and say activists were the only people trying something, while most of us just waited for the shit to hit the fan.
